Exhibition duration: 06.04-03.09 2023
Temporary Exhibition Hall

This exhibition started from a collection and an idea. The Collector Dr. Andreas Pittas has in his collections works related to the myth of Ariadne and Andromeda. Outstanding works that mark milestones in European Art History. But also works that are thematically linked to two women whose myths, and stories, were a revelation for the curators of the exhibition. Among other things, why both heroines, Ariadne and Andromeda, associate their name and their legend with Cyprus. Ariadne, on the other hand, is abandoned on the coast of Cyprus, in Amathus, by her lover, Theseus. And Andromeda's powerful father was Cephaes, founder of Kyrenia. Both Ariadne and Andromeda represent themes that have long been intertwined with the fate of women in a male-dominated world: marriage and childbirth, freedom and servitude, with their home crushed by tragedy and heartbreak. And yet, in this exhibition, their role is not limited to that of "domesticity at risk": the alluring female figure that functions as an object of desire. Instead, by examining together iconography and texts, yesterday and today, we discover together deeper truths of human nature, through new, bold readings.

Focusing on important works from the Pitta Collection, the exhibition combines a contemporary presentation, with the help of interactive projections, bringing together ancient Greek mythology through centuries of Western art. Revealing great stories of love, (self-)sacrifice and betrayal, the pains of motherhood but also the eternal cycle of life, death and rebirth. From the Cypriot archaic clay figures of the Cypriot Ariadne/Venus to 20th century art, and from Euripides' Andromeda to contemporary poetry, visual and written references are juxtaposed with contemporary feminist reinterpretations. We are thus motivated to wander through iconography and literary tradition, whether ancient, post-classical or modern. In recognition that "when women take up space, the space reserved for men diminishes. But that means we learn the whole story and not half of it."

But the exhibition is equally important as a result of the close collaboration between a museum and a private collection, between the A. G. Leventis Gallery and Dr. Andreas Pitta, distinguished collector and member of the Gallery's Honorary Committee. As such, it offers visitors the unique opportunity to explore not only an interesting and original theme, but also a set of exceptional works of art rarely exhibited in public, while at the same time, the fuller narrative of the myth is aided by loans of ancient objects from the Cyprus Museum and the Museum of Kykkos Monastery.

The exhibition is curated by the Director of the A. G. Leventis Gallery, Loukia Loizou Hadjigavriel, the Curator of the Paris Collection, Myrto Hatzaki and the Gallery’s Curator, Katerina Stephanides.